Web Metrics | Search MarketingSite Strategy

"In a nutshell, Jason created our marketing analytics capability. He was able to
figure out what data we collect, where it is, what was missing, and hook it all
up so we canget meaningful, actionable data. Our marketing efforts have improved
leads and conversions in some cases by an order of magnitude. He knows his
stuff."
Chris Foleen, Marketing Project Coordinator, TransCore, Inc.

Tuesday, May 31, 2011

I just watched Online Marketing Connect's recent webinar "Using Content Marketing to Drive Acquisition". The speaker, Chris Baggot, brought up some great points.

He started out by making a great statement:

"So much or our
social media conversation has been kinda touchy-feely...At the end of the day,
we all have to grow our businesses."

This was a good strong start in my mind. Most of what he talked about was a walk through of process.

He also talked a lot about how content needs to flow around.

Every distribution
channel is also a content collection channel.
No content should be wasted. Content from anywhere to anywhere.

Almost all content
is blog worth and the blog should be the hub.

Interestingly, Chris pointed out that 80% of all blog
traffic is first time visitors. This is
opportunity. Many times it is repeat visitors that are seen as more valuable because they represent a higher level of engagement. However, Chris turns this on its head and is clearly focused on growing the audience, not just keeping the audience.

His perspective on content marketing is clear: Content marketing is
a volume game. Have a message wherever
someone might show up. Target an
ocean, then inundate it with content (2-3 blog posts a week is not enough).

In terms of practical advice:

Start content
planning with keyword research. This is
a way to find new visitors that don't know who you are already. Uses their language.

If you want to
create content that gets shared, it has to be content about people. Reviews are over rated. People like to talk about themselves and
their experiences. Foster this by
creating "similar-situation stories".

Customer service
emails can be extremely blog worthy. A
LOT of content is created and sent through email.

Interestingly, he kept coming back to the point that more content = more search traffic. This was a strong way to blend the mediums. Using social media to foster content growth that could be echo'd on the site blog to feed search engines was a nice well, rounded way of creating a content generating ecosystem.

Friday, May 13, 2011

Previously I wrote about the Ten Ways the New Google Analytics Gets It Right. There are a lot of really good things that are going on in the new interface. But there are also some ways that the new interface is not quite ready for prime time. I marked these as "backslides" because, in my opinion, they are areas where the new interface actually makes things harder or more clunky. There aren't many of these that I've come across. But some of the ones I have found are pretty critical..

Here are seven ways the new interface has problems:

Backslide #1: No Advanced Segments in DashboardsAlthough the new dash boarding feature is pretty great and represents a real step forward, it is almost unusable simply because there is no Advanced Segment selector. The benefit of multiple dashboards is almost completely lost if you can't created segment specific dashboards. The old GA had the ability to apply segmentation to its dashboards. This is a big oversight on the part of Google and something I hope gets remedied soon.

Backslide #2: Profile Selection Screen UII personally find the profile selection screen to be more difficult to use. For the profiles I use all the time, I've adapted to using the search box. But for the profiles that I don't frequent on a regular basis, the navigation is harder. Also, I haven't seen a way to "star" or flag my most common/favorite profiles. This feature was very handing when dealing with clients that had many profiles. Now, I just have to dig.

Backslide #3: Comparing to Past in Spark LinesThe new way of displaying spark lines when comparing date ranges (stacking instead of overlay) is clunky, it makes the page way too long, and it is difficult to screen grab this information into a presentation. This just doesn't look finished to me.

Backslide #4: Tiny TabsSome of the navigation has been moved from the left nav into tabs. These tabs are not like the old tabs that looked like tabs. These tabs are tiny text links. The way these are implemented and organized takes some learning and could be more intuitive.

Backslide #5: Table Filtering is Harder to Find and UseOne key piece of functionality that has gotten buried is the table filtering. If you are looking for all .pdf file types in the content report, you need to filter. If you are looking for visits from phrases that include a brand name in the keyword report, you need to filter. Filtering used to be a little text box at the bottom of the results table. Now it is under a button hidden to the right of the page. Then the "Apply" button is on the left side of the page. The buttons are neutral color so they don't stick out requiring your eyes to hunt all over the page to figure out how to use this feature. It was so simple and effective before. Why did they every change this?

Backslide #6: Counting Inactive Goals (bug?)Inactive goals get counted in the total conversions counts. This should be a bug because it makes the goal overview reports worthless.

Backslide #7: No Emailing Reports (down for now)You can't email reports or dashboards. I read this is going to be remedied, but why was it cut to begin with?

Summary of the New Google AnalyticsOverall, the new GA seems very "beta" to me. It just feels like it's not finished. Some of the issues I mentioned above--no segmentation in dashboards, inactive goals being counted in the overall conversion numbers, no emailing--make this new version impossible to rely on for my purposes. Until these issues are fixed, the new interface just isn't ready to the primary interface. Hopefully the old interface will be around for a while.

Thursday, April 28, 2011

I have been very skeptical of the new Google Analytics interface. Why? Not sure. Maybe I just don't like change, especially when it effects tools that I use everyday and rely on for my prosperity. From first glance, you can tell there are some big changes in store. This was not an update. This was an overhaul in many ways. And after using it now for a few weeks, I can say that I think it's a good move but seems only partially implemented.I'd planned on doing screen shots and making a full instructive blog post, but frankly, I don't have the time. So here is my condensed list of things I like in the new GA so far. These are in no particular order.

Getting It Right #1: No All Visits RequiredThis is a huge improvement in data visualization and something I never understood. Comparing everything to the All Visits segment crushes the scale and you lose the details in lower volume trends. Freeing us from the shackles of scaling everything at the maximum is wonderful.

Getting it Right #2: Comparing Individual Keyword TrendsIf you go to the Organic Search report, you might notice that things have changed. The list of keywords have a check box next to them and at the bottom of the keyword table here is a button that says "Plot Rows". Now, you can only plot 2 rows, but it's a start. This continues with the awakening that Google Analytics seems to be having that comparing trends is central to what web analysts do. And the more trends we can compare, the happier we are.

Getting it Right #3: Persistent Report View when Switching ProfilesThis a huge time saver. In the past, when you wanted to look at the same information in different profiles, you either had to have two windows running or do a lot of navigating. Now, using the profile list in the upper right, you can basically swap back and forth between profiles in the same report. Thank you Google, for this one.

Getting it Right #4: Understanding Importance of SegmentationMoving the Advanced Segments from a right side little selector thing to a top of page, big obvious drop-down makes a statement. Segmentation is important. We've known that for a long time, and now the UI is knowing it to.

Getting it Right #5: Differentiating Reporting StylesThere are 3 styles of reports in the new GA. Dashboards, Standard Reports, and Custom Reports. In the old GA, Dashboard was the first report. The standard reports were basically drill downs from the dashboard. Custom reports were this little hidden text link below the main left nav. Now they are all top of page, side by side, and big as day. The UI and the functionality is completely separated for them. Standard reports are not just the drill down from the dashboard. And the Dashboard is no longer just a smorgasbord of snippets from the body of reports. They are each distinctly different. This individuation of the reporting styles is a bold move by Google. Analysts will learn to love it. There is a lot going on here philosophically in terms of the purpose and presentation of data.

Getting it Right #6: No Auto LoadsThank you. I no longer have to sit through the loading of the Traffic Sources Overview report, when what I really want is the Organic Keyword report.

Getting it Right #7: Event GoalsWhy this was never included from the beginning is a mystery to me. This update has a lot of impacts and really ups the ante on implementation choices between virtual page views and event tags.

Getting it Right #8: Multiple DashboardsI'm calling this one out separately from item #5 above because it is important and is one of the strongest indicators that Google has evolved their concept of the "dashboard". Unfortunately the implementation is incomplete, but this is certainly a strong move into new thinking about data presentation.

Getting it Right #9: Custom Report Flat TablesIf you go into the custom reports and create a report, you will see an option that was never available before--one little drop down list with an option to create an "explorer" style report or a "flat table" report. Thank you, Google. Thank you for recognizing that we export a lot of the data out of your reporting interface and having flat tables makes things much easier. I don't love the new report designer interface, but I can learn it. Having new options for creating reports that are designed to be exported is well worth it.

Getting it Right #10: Easy Access to Settings from ReportsThat little cog button just to the right is well done. Another time saver. Thanks.

There may be many more things about the new GA interface that is worth pointing out and I just have not discovered yet. But these are a start.

How the New Interface FailsIt's not all peaches with the new Google Analytics. In the next post we'll look at all the problems in the new GA. Some of these problems are really critical issues that, frankly, are keeping me from moving 100% over to the new interface for all my reporting needs. More on that soon...